Understanding
by PNWgal
Summary: After Delano's arrested, Kono heads home after a long day. Steve meets her there and wants to talk. Can they sort out their differences?


**This one's for Fleur, without whose encouragement I would have never have posted here, and allegrita, who keeps me honest and my writing clean. _Mahalo_.**

**H50H50H50H50H50H50**

Kono stood on her driveway and lifted a hand in farewell as Chin put his rig in gear and drove away. A sigh of relief escaped her as she watched the red tail lights disappear into the deepening dusk.

_Finally. I didn't think I'd EVER get him to leave._

It had been a heroic effort, but she'd finally convinced him she didn't need a babysitter. He'd peppered her with questions and her answers had been designed to ease his mind and get him the hell out of her driveway as quickly as possible.

Didn't matter that most of what she told him was bullshit.

_Yes, Chin, I'm fine. The bullet just grazed me, and I hardly lost any blood. Naw, it doesn't hurt that much, but yes, I'll take a painkiller when I get home. No, I don't need you to stay with me tonight - the painkiller will knock me out cold._

_No, I don't need you to come with me to Fryer's office tomorrow morning._

Kono had been adamant about reporting alone to Fryer at oh-eight-hundred to get her gun and badge back. She was a cop, for Christ's sake - she didn't need Chin or anyone else to hold her hand. She'd handled this undercover op alone, and she'd get reinstated on her own.

Closing her eyes, she lifted her face and breathed in the Hawaiian night. The ever-present plumeria filled the warm air with its sweet scent, one she'd loved from her earliest childhood. Even in the grittiest parts of Honolulu, the island always smelled of flowers. A tropical breeze blew off the ocean and rustled the leaves of the palm trees at the side of her house.

_Kauhale. _This island was her home and it was her job to keep it safe...and now that she was done selling her soul to Fryer and IA, she could get back to it.

That was, if the boss wanted her back. Kono sighed and laid her forehead against her front door. She'd been painted with the same brush as Chin...maybe McGarrett didn't want two team members who had dirty cop laundry.

She inserted her key in the front door lock and hissed as the action sent fiery fingers of pain burning down her arm. She let go of the knob to massage the ache.

"Getting shot hurts like a bitch."

Kono wheeled around at the sound, her hand doing an automatic dive for her weapon, and cursed as her fingers met nothing but denim. Her shoulders tightened into automatic attention as McGarrett moved out of the shadows.

"What are you doing here, McGarrett?"

Steve's brow quirked, and Kono could almost hear his thoughts. _Boss. You used to call me 'boss'._"Thought we should talk."

"I think we've done enough talking for one day," Kono snapped, then took a deep breath. Steve had had the same shitty day as she, and biting his head off wouldn't change the past. She tried for an even, calm tone. "I just want a shower, a beer and bed."

"We need to clear a few things up before you come back to 5-0." Steve crossed his arms, leaned up against the side of Kono's porch. "I wanna know why you didn't come to us for help when you were in trouble." A quick smile flitted across his handsome face. "Besides...you probably shouldn't drink if you're gonna take painkillers, like you promised Chin you would."

Kono's jaw dropped. _How long had he been hiding back there?_The man had ears like a bat. She decided to ignore Steve's eavesdropping and concentrated instead on getting her front door unlocked. Unfortunately, her key chose that moment to become stubborn and stick in the lock. "I'm a cop," she muttered as she fought a losing battle against the front door. "I did what I had to do." She turned her head, peered at McGarrett through her hair. "And who says I'm coming back to 5-0?"

Steve's face tightened, his blue eyes darkening to stormy gray. _Oh, THAT didn't sit well with the boss, _Kono thought as McGarrett bulldozed his way onto the porch and bumped her out of the way with his hip. With a grunt that sounded a lot like "Move, damn it," he grabbed the doorknob and cranked the key in the lock. The door creaked in protest as he shoved it open and stalked inside her house, leaving a dumbfounded Kono standing alone on her stoop.

"Come on in, Steve," she said to his disappearing back and swept her arm in the general direction of Cyclone McGarrett. She stepped inside, kicking the door closed with her foot as she flipped on the lights. Making sure the locks were secure, she strode into the kitchen, ready to hit her boss with both barrels.

What she saw there stopped her in her tracks.

His back to her, Steve braced himself against the counter, his head bent. Tension showed in every line of his body, the veins that stood in stark relief in his forearms, the way his shoulders stretched the fabric of his shirt. Alarmed, Kono took a few steps towards him, then stopped.

"Boss?" Her voice was soft, tentative. "Hey, I'm sorry if-"

"We almost opened fire on you today." Steve's voice was so quiet, Kono had to strain to hear. "Working undercover for Fryer almost got you killed. You took a bullet on my watch."

"It's just a graze," Kono said with a confidence she was far from feeling. "Part of the job."

"A job I didn't know you had. A job you kept from us, from _me_." Steve slapped his hands on the counter, whipped around. "Why didn't you come to us, Kono? To _ME_?"

Everything inside Kono quailed at Steve's anger, but she stood her ground. She hadn't flinched when he'd come at her hard in the box, and she wouldn't flinch now. She leaned her good shoulder against the archway that connected the kitchen to the living room. "I couldn't. Fryer came to me, told me if I didn't do what he wanted, he'd open up IA investigations on all of you." Her blood began to boil with her own fury. "Chin just got his badge back - I wasn't gonna be the reason he lost it again!"

"Fryer can't touch us," Steve began, but Kono interrupted him.

"Yes, he _can._" She pushed herself away from the wall, pain tapping her on the shoulder at the sudden motion, reminding her she'd been shot. "You're not a SEAL anymore, McGarrett, you're a cop, just like me and Chin and Danny. You don't have immunity and means anymore, remember?" Kono thrust out her chin and led with the anger. "You couldn't protect me, but I could protect you by doing what Fryer wanted."

"Kono-"

Kono shot up a hand. "I'm not finished."

Steve's eyes narrowed, his brows pulling into a deep frown. The struggle to not dress her down was written all over him, but reason finally won out. He let out an exasperated sigh and leaned a hip against the counter, crossed his arms. "Ok. Go ahead."

"He had files on every one of you," she continued. "He showed them to me. He's had tails on all of us for weeks. He told me he was going to re-open the investigation into that missing money Chin was accused of taking. He knows Danny was sleeping with Rachel and threatened to get his visitations with Grace revoked." She went to the fridge, opened it, took out a bottle of water.  
"And you _know_he knows how you bend the law - how'd he put it? You play it fast and loose? How many suspects' civil rights have you violated?"

Steely blue made brief contact with defiant brown, then flicked to the side. _Don't have a good answer for that, do ya, boss? _Kono wasn't about to let him off the hook just yet and charged ahead.

"You think replacing that ten million was the only time Governor Jameson pulled your ass out of the fire? Fryer had enough to bring you up on multiple charges of corruption and police brutality, plus he threatened to go to the military and have you court-martialed!"

Her temper was getting the better of her. Kono practiced a deep-breathing exercise her Auntie Loa had taught her, and cracked the plastic bottle open. "It was better to risk one career than four."

Steve's lips thinned as he uncrossed his arms and gripped the counter's edge with both hands. "It wasn't your call to protect us, Kono."

"Wrong, McGarrett." Weary from her outburst, Kono sighed. "Look, you had enough on your plate. You'd just been exonerated and were still recovering from being stabbed and dealing with the new governor-"

Steve shook his head. "Doesn't matter. _I _lead this team, _I _look out for us."

The long swallow of water Kono forced down did nothing to erase the bitterness that burned the back of her throat. "Some of us better than others, apparently."

A flush began its slow ascent up Steve's neck as he pushed himself off the counter. "What the hell is _that _supposed to mean?"

_Walking a thin line there, Kalakaua._Kono knew she was pushing her luck, but she couldn't have stopped the stream of words if she'd tried. "It means all of you seemed a little busy breaking in the new girl. Didn't take you long to replace me, did it?"

Kono thought the boss had been pissed when he'd interrogated her earlier. That didn't come close to how angry he was now. "Agent Weston was 'appointed' to this team by the governor," Steve ground out between clenched teeth.

Kono was floored. Chin hadn't shared that particular tidbit of information with her when he'd told her about the newcomer from Homeland Security. "What?"

A mirthless grin turned up the corners of Steve's mouth. "You heard me. I didn't have a choice, so I made the best of a bad situation. Turns out we needed her when you 'lost your badge'." Steve's air quotations around the last part of his sentence made Kono want to punch him.

"You let Weston put the cuffs on me." Kono didn't think she'd ever get over that.

Steve's jaw clenched so hard Kono swore she heard his molars crack. "It would have been better if one of us arrested you? Huh?" He paced the short length of Kono's kitchen. "You wanted me to slap you in cuffs? Maybe Danny? Bringing you in ripped him up. I couldn't even get Chin in the fucking car." Arm-waving was added to the pacing. "Don't you _get_ it, Kono? Lori cuffed you because she's the only one that _could_."

Silent, Kono looked down at the toes of her boots and turned her water bottle around in her hands. She'd seen the look on Danny's face as he'd drawn on her, like he'd been punched in the gut. Steve himself had looked half-sick has he'd held his gun on her and watched Lori take her into custody, and she hoped she never did anything again to put that look of disappointment on his face she'd seen when he'd first walked into Interrogation.

And as long as she lived, she'd never forget the pain in Chin's eyes as Steve sat her down and took off the cuffs, his almost desperate attempt to get her to talk, just _talk_to him and explain her actions. Shame stained her cheeks.

Her silence fueled McGarrett's fire even more. "Still got nothin' to say to me? You _lied_to me, Kono! You lied to me, and because of you, Chin lied to me, too!"

Kono finally found her voice. "I didn't have a _choice_! It wasn't just your careers on the line, it was _mine._" To her horror, tears stung the backs of her eyeballs. She fisted her hands in her hair, yanked hard. "Don't you see? After I couldn't surf competitively anymore, being a cop was all I had left. I wasn't gonna let Fryer or _anyone_take that away from me." She turned away from Steve, crossed her arms over her chest to hide her trembling hands. "Next to my family, my badge is the most important thing in the world to me."

"And what about 5-0, Kono? What about us?" Kono shook her head at Steve's question as she fought back tears. Steve and Danny were as much _ohana_to her as Chin, and the thought of losing them broke her heart.

"Look at me...Kono, _look _at me." The quiet urgency in Steve's voice had Kono turning just far enough to see him reach into one of the myriad pockets of his cargo pants. He pulled out her 5-0 badge, tossed it on her kitchen table.

"Pick that up," he ordered. "You pick up that fucking badge and you wear it with pride until I tell you to take it off."

Kono felt like she was moving through water as she made her slow way towards the table and her future. Hands on his hips, Steve watched as Kono set the bottle down on the table, and closed her fingers around the gold shield. "I don't give a good goddamn if you're HPD or not. You're a member of 5-0, and one of mine. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal." A grin teased at the corners of Kono's mouth. McGarrett had made that point pretty damn clear when he'd popped Fryer in the mouth after Delano was arrested. She looked down at the badge she held, traced the contours with a finger. Steve was right. It didn't matter whether or not she got her HPD badge back. She was still a good cop.

"I was hard on you today." Steve rubbed a hand over his jaw. "I won't apologize for that."

"You don't have to. You were doing your job." Kono clipped her badge on to her jeans waistband, felt the comforting weight of it against her hip.

"You held, Kono. You held all the way." There was no mistaking the pride in Steve's voice, and Kono felt the warmth of it all the way to her toes.

"I'm...I'm sorry I didn't bring you in, boss. I should have trusted you guys to have my back."

"And I should have known you can take care of yourself." It was as close to apology as Steve could get, and Kono decided it was good enough.

Steve shifted his weight and shoved his hands in his pockets. "So ahhh...are we good?"

Kono smiled. "Yeah, we're good, boss."

"Good." This time Steve's grin was warm and just this side of mischievous. "You mentioned a shower, bed and beer before. Figure you got damn thirsty chewing my ass out...you got a couple of Longboards in that fridge?"

Kono chuckled. "Real subtle, boss." She opened up the refrigerator and pulled out two frosty brown bottles, handed one to Steve. Before he could twist off the top, Steve's phone buzzed. Kono took a long pull on her beer as Steve tugged his phone out of his pocket and checked the text.

"We'll get you up to speed tomorrow," Steve tucked his phone back in his pocket, "after we meet with Fryer. Got your dress uniform pressed and ready?"

"Wait...what?" Kono choked on a mouthful of Longboard. "How do you know about Fryer? And what do you mean 'we'?"

Steve's smile lit up his face. "That was Danny. Chin called him. And 'we' means us...all of us. You've never been alone in this, Kono. You've always had us."

It was true. She knew the three men would stand behind her as she accepted her badge and gun back, Steve at attention in his dress Navy blues, Danny refusing to acknowledge Hawaii was too hot for his New Jersey PD dress uniform, Chin standing proud in his own HPD uniform. They would always have her back, and she would always have theirs.

Kono grinned back at Steve. "Yeah...I know."


End file.
